Prebiotics
Given that we are increasingly resigned to the fact that stopping social excesses of calorie dense food may elude us for a long time to come, interest is being diverted to finding mechanisms to prevent absorption of what is already ingested. While dapgliflozin and canagliflozin facilitate renal excretion and acarbose and voglibose prevent glucose absorption from the gut, similar mechanisms are being sought to prevent food absorption in general from the gut.
Food stuff that is non-digestible, called prebiotics, (Prebiotics for obesity: a small light on the horizon? Gut July 2013) could not only bulk up the diet and help with satiety, but could potentially be used to favourably modulate the density of microbiota in the gut. Facilitating the increased activity of endotoxin-reducing microbiota as bifidobacterium and faecalibacterium prausnitzii while decreasing the density of bacteroides intestinalis and propionibacterium could reduce systemic/ metabolic inflammation. Phosphatidylcholine and its related metabolites have been implicated in cardiovascular disease production and lowering theses through reducing adverse bacteria in the gut is being investigated. Faecal transplantation to transfer friendly microbiotia from lean donors to obese individuals is an ongoing attempt to reduce insulin resistance. While malabsorptive problems could be a potential effect of using prebiotics, there is probably an even greater theoretical concern of interfering with gut flora with resultant selective emergence of potentially dangerous strains.
Food stuff that is non-digestible, called prebiotics, (Prebiotics for obesity: a small light on the horizon? Gut July 2013) could not only bulk up the diet and help with satiety, but could potentially be used to favourably modulate the density of microbiota in the gut. Facilitating the increased activity of endotoxin-reducing microbiota as bifidobacterium and faecalibacterium prausnitzii while decreasing the density of bacteroides intestinalis and propionibacterium could reduce systemic/ metabolic inflammation. Phosphatidylcholine and its related metabolites have been implicated in cardiovascular disease production and lowering theses through reducing adverse bacteria in the gut is being investigated. Faecal transplantation to transfer friendly microbiotia from lean donors to obese individuals is an ongoing attempt to reduce insulin resistance. While malabsorptive problems could be a potential effect of using prebiotics, there is probably an even greater theoretical concern of interfering with gut flora with resultant selective emergence of potentially dangerous strains.